Fastest Kills in Standard and Extended

Zero Quest

Ok I’ve played the original version of this deck ( quest for the holy relic ) and I have to confess I hate it. If it works and annoyingly, when I play it, it seems to work all the time, its brutal quick and there’s no coming back from the brink.   So in age old ‘Vader’ style I thought, if you can’t beat them... Eat them...

Ladies and gentlemen this is Zero Quest and it has the fastest potential win of ANY Standard deck (that I know of..)

Its combo based and about as stable as the Euro, but I’ll give you the skeleton and I’ll leave it you to sculpt a T-REX out of it.

You will need

4 Leyline of Anticipation

 4 Memnite

4 Everflowing Chalice

4 Mox Opal

4 Ornithopter

4 Kuldotha Rebirth

4 Goblin Bushwhacker

4 Lightning bolt

4 Goblin Chieftain

4 Chimeric Mass

4 Scalding Tarn

4 Arid mesa

14 Mountains

So... what does it do?

Well it can swing for 12 damage on turn ONE.

Yep, you read that right not turn two... turn one... You’ll need the god hand, but the deck is designed to generate that relatively easily ... So 12 damage on the first turn how? Well you elect to get second if you win the flip, or if your opponent wins you’ll probably be going second anyway. 

What you need in an opening hand is any combination of the following... 0 mana artifacts, mox opal, rebirth and most importantly the leyline...  As long as you have the leyline you opponent is going to have a bad day, just how bad is dependent on your luck...   

Here’s the trick...  Let’s say you have the god hand, and I cannot stress enough you don’t need it.

Leyline, ornithopter, mox opal, kuldotha rebirth, 2 x memnite, goblin bushwacker... Keep the hand and immediately as the game begins lay the Leyline. Now during your opponent’s upkeep step flash in the menites , the ornithopter and the mox opal, then use the opal for one red and sac the ornithopter to play the rebirth. This will give you 5 x 1/1’s before your opponent has even laid a land.

In your FIRST turn, draw and play a land and tap the opal and the land to play the Goblin bushwhacker making everything a  2/1 and allowing you to swing for !2 damage on Turn one in turn 2 lay a Goblin chieftain and that ain’t game, you ain’t playing right.

  

Of course these are god hands, but think about the deck, even if you can’t pull of the ultimate in turn one you could have a any number of battle ready 1/1’s ... 

No islands for leyline? Nope, it’s there for one reason and one reason only, mulligan till you find it.  Like I said this is the skeleton and we at Adventures in the Meta encourage you to make your own decks.   

Sideboard, we’re going to leave this to you to and I suggest that you completely change strategy on game two because a smart opponent will elect to play 2^nd in game two if you beat them game one.

Here are some other ideas to play around the leyline...

 Add Beastmaster’s Ascension and Birds of Paradise... and in your opponents first turn you can flash in the birds off the opal and then in your first turn you can lay a land and play Beastmaster’s Ascension, and swing for 3... In your 2^nd turn that’s game...

There’s even a horrific Extended Combo which is potentially a one turn kill.... again during your opponent’s turn flash in the memnites/ornithopters and then use the opal to play Amulet of Vigor.

In your first turn, play Windbrisk Heights and stick an Emrakul under it... As it comes in un-tapped, thanks to the Amulet you can then swing with 3 memnites and use the opal to activate it, thus ‘casting’ Emrakul and getting the extra turn...  Swing in on the next turn (which is really still your first turn) and that’s 21 damage including the memnites)

So there you have it the fastest kills in Standard and extended, that don’t require any help from your opponent.(You can do nasty things with Summoning Trap, but this will require your opponent to cancel your spells for you.)

Update for Christmas  (you can abuse this build further by the addition of Shared Discoveries ) of course you can now add islands too which will make the leylines work

update Dec 25th... I've been thinking about this concept over and over and I've come to a startling conclussion... If Wizards do introduce an Artifact Land in Mirrodin Besieged then I think we've just invented the new Archetype.

Why? Well for one thing the Mox opal will finally be playable anyway and with both llanowar Elves and Birds of paradise being 1 drop mana producers with leyline ofanticipation in play it could be easy to drop 3 mana on turn 1 - or 2 if that doesn't happen (which let's be fair, is a good plan b)... and that would give you access to a staggering choice of options including tutors, culitvates, turn one ratchet bombs with mana to spare ... the list is endless and you could easily replenish your hand... 

Turn one cultivate  - turn two jace's inginuity... anyone?

Whiite Weenie Christmas?

 This one's from regular contributor MAXFAN... What I like most about it is the number of 'sideboard' cards in the main deck... Some folks will tell you that the likes of White Knight and Kor Firewalker don't belong in the main deck because they are colour specific, but those same people seem to forsget that they are both still decent 2 drops and if you happen to be playing Red or Black, you've just given yourself a massive advantage... So I for one applaud MAXFAN'S  innovation and leftfield thinking. Anyways enough from me here's the deck...Gordon Vader....

This is what I currently have going on in Standard.

I love to play white weenie, but I hate the Quest for Argentum Armor deck. It might have something to do with the fact that I once lost six consecutive coin flips attempting to break a Sorcerer's Strongbox. This is the deck I've built to have better consistency. You could play it without the dual lands, but Stirring Wildwood is insanely good and you'd lose a couple sideboard cards. Just be sure to activate the man-land before you cast Brave the Elements or use Ajani.

The goal is to continuously draw two mana creatures that threaten to end the game by themselves or with one other creature in play by making them large with Honor of the Pure and/or Ajani Goldmane. If large is not enough, give the team protection with Brave the Elements for the win.

The Kor Firewalker might look a bit odd mainboard, but it wins free Game 1's. White Knight is good enough as a 2/2 First Striker even if the protection from black never becomes relevant.

Tajuru Preserver and Oust in the sideboard are for the green ramp decks, Leyline for red and black as you'd expect, Revoke for decks packing good artifacts, and more Journey to Nowhere for other random creatures.  Depending how many colorless creatures are running around in your meta, you might change out the Brave the Elements for more Journeys in the maindeck.  Also, if you have Day of Judgments, there are matchups where it should be coming in.

Creatures (26)

4 x Student of Warfare (this card is certifiably nuts, get them!)

4 x White Knight

3 x Kor Aeronaut

3 x Kor Skyfisher

4 x Kor Hookmaster

4 x Kazandu Blademaster

4 x Kor Firewalker

Other spells (11)

4 x Honor of the Pure

2 x Ajani Goldmane

3 x Brave the Elements

2 x Journey to Nowhere

Lands (23)

8 x Plains

4 x Razorverge Thicket

4 x Stirring Wildwood

3 x Sunpetal Grove

4 x Tectonic Edge

Sideboard (15)

3 x Leyline of Sanctity

4 x Tajuru Preserver

3 x Revoke Existence

2 x Journey to Nowhere

3 x Oust

"Max Fan"

Proliferhate...

As it’s nearly Christmas you may have noticed we haven’t been as prolific as usual. So apologies if we’ve been a bit slack, but we’re going to make it up to you now with a brand new deck. It’s quick, it’s brutal and the entire thing will cost less than a single ‘Jace The Pocket Melter.’

I have to give a nod to my good friend Jim for the foundations of this deck. He’s still promising to submit his original list and when he does I’ll stick it up, but Adventures in the Meta can’t wait forever so I’ve decided to make my own version with a few twists....

I call it Proliferhate... but I’m open to better names...

You will need

4 Triskelion

4 Grafted Exoskeleton

4 Throne of Geth

4 Steel Overseer

4 Everflowing Chalice

3 Ortnithopter

3 Darksteel Myr

3 Etched Champion

4 Voltaic key

3 Contagion Clasp

1 Elixir of Immortality

8 Mountains

8 Islands 

4 Mystifying Maze

4 Dread Sanctuary 

As the deck is entirely colourless why not have some fun and play some Jedi Mind Tricks on your opponent. I've gone for blue and red so they'll be more likely to play with caution. 

The Mazes will take out dragon lords and superpumped unblockable posoinous monkeys. whilst you can actually pump the sanctuaries with the overseers and then proliferate the counters.  

So what does it do? 

Well this deck is really three decks in one.  It’s one part ramp, one part aggro and one part control and the key to the deck is proliferation.  

So what’s the plan ?

Start as you mean to go on with an early Ornithopter and either the Elixir or preferably a Voltaic Key. Turn two either drop a Chalice for 1 or the Overseer. The Thopter will get in the way of any early beats with its 2 toughness and because it flies, if it needs to get in the way of a Plague Stinger it can. By the third turn you have many options.  

What you are ultimately trying to do is to swing in with artifact creatures and to use proliferation and Voltaic Keys to mega charge all your attackers. There’s also a couple of sneaky tricks hidden in the deck and  with any luck your opponent will be too busy dealing with 6/7 flying thopters to notice them. 

Grafted Exoskeleton may seem an odd choice for the deck, but not only does it give your critters a +2 +2 bonus, it’s also fuel for the throne and more importantly it can be a single turn win. If you can get it on Triskellion not only does it turn him into a virtual Contagion Engine, but you can simply give your opponent poison counters with his ability  add some proliferation and you could easily take game in a single turn... 

EG. Let’s say he comes in with 3 counters, you have the throne, 2 keys, an overseer and the exoskeleton play.  First equip it with the Skeleton and give your opponent a poison counter, next tap the overseer and reset Triskellion  to 3 counters , next sac the overseer to the throne  and proliferate Triskellion up to 4 and give your opponent another counter.  Next untap the throne with a key and tap it again this time saccing the key. Your opponent will now be on 3 counters and Triskelion will have 5 counters use the last key on the throne and boom!  Your opponent will have 4 poison counters and Triskelion will have the last 6 he needs to finish the game. Ok it’s unlikely, but this is the one turn version, if you do it over a few turns and you’ll find it’s easy, and don’t forget you can swing with him too and use the counters to take out any defenders.

Grafted ExoSkeleton really? None of my other creatures have infect? 

Why not and it doesn’t matter that your other creatures don’t have infect.  By the time you can equip and play the ExoSkeleton, you’ll either be pinging with the toxic Triskelion or swinging in with a massive flying thopter. Either way it’s bad news for the other side, and don’t forget with the ExoSkeleton on Triskelion, the counters will stick and with the amount of proliferating you’ll be doing, walls and titans will fall by the wayside while you ramp into the Stratosphere and push your opponent to the limit. 

We all have to make sacrifices and this deck is no different and you may have to chuck everything in the bin to get what you want, but don’t worry too much about it, because your deck is running a natural safety net. With the Elixir of Immortality, your deck is a never ending loop of little martyrs, all ready to bounce back out of the graveyard and pick up the banner once again.

Match ups? 

V’s elves – With double tapping Overseers and Indesctructible mega charged Myrs and Pro green Champions, yYou should be able to hold own until Triskelion’s big guns come out. In stalemate the Exo Skeleton could easily give you the win.

  

V’s Eldrazi Ramp. – Go in fighting and don’t be afraid to throw away triskelion in an attempt to stop your opponent from ramping.  If you’re iucky you can pull off the ultimate nose rubs and kill Emrakul with a 15/16 Ornithopter ( I haven’t quite pulled this off but I did manage to kill one with two 9/10 thopters.)  

V’s Valakut -  Agaiin it will be down to pace. Keep your creatures massive and swing swing swing...

V’s Blue Whte Control – Your Myrs will beat Day of Judgment and the Champions will beat Jace and Gideon.  And don’t forget Infect works on Walkers too.  

V’s Infect – Block everything and you’ll win... Save Triskellion for anything that gets a distortion strikeor use your Mazes

Breaking our Extended Combo

There are many ways to skin a cat or so my Grandma used to say, not that I think she ever skinned a cat,. In magic if cat skinning was a game winning bomb or sorcery, you can bet someone, somewhere  will figure out a way to sneak it through on turn three. Well we at Adventures In The Meta like nothing more than a good tinker with the rules and we’ve been busy this week...

Ramp, is an essential part of the game it’s the ladder rather than the snake., the hare over the tortoise and while slow and steady may often win the race, ramp will win it a lot quicker so long as there’s something other than tunnel at the end of the well... tunnel.   

Back in the day when colour meant something, each colour had its strength and whilst red and black had pops at it, ramp was really the secret squirrel of Green. From the heady days of Channel to  Rampant Growths and fertile grounds and an army of elves  tap dancing back and forth to super pump some enormous great green fattie, green has always been the king of Ramp...  Now there are a million ways to ramp and with the advent of non basic lands, everflowing chalices, infinite Myr loops, Lotus Cobras and Prototypeportallingvoltaickeythroneofgethproliferation basically any one can have a go...But hey this is magic and there’s always another way to do something...

So ladies and Gentelmen We give you Titan ramp Vader style and this is an exclusive combo break... Just remember you heard it here first...

Before we give the game away we’d like to make the following statements...

1.       We are presenting the fastest version (which may not be the smartest play)

2.       If you play it this way you invite answers and despite it being brand new your opponent will spot it in seconds

3.       This combo is unstable and you can make it safer and indeed possibly quicker with money, but this is a budget blog so this is how we do it (and how anyone can )

Titan Ramp...

Ther three main combo pieces are...

Tiaining Grounds

Soulbright Flamekin
 

Inferno Titan  ( although this combo also works with any big red/colourless fattie... i.e. Wurmcoil Engine, Kargan Dragonlord (whom you can pump to madness with this trick)... Platinum Emperion... the list goes on... )

So turn by turn

Turn one lay an island – play the Training grounds

Turn Two – Drop a mountain and play the Flamekin

Turn three – Drop another mountain... because of training grounds you only need one mana to trigger the flamkins ability so  tap all lands to give the flamekin trample 3 times (it doesn’t say different targets) boom you get 8 red mana... use 6 to cast the inferno titan and the game is probably yours... You have so may options here it’s not funny...

If they have no blockers then as he comes in, direct the titan’s 3 excess damage to your opponent’s face, you can then give him haste with Burst of Speed for one extra red mana and double strike with Assault Strobe with the other red...  as he attacks deal the additional 3 damage to his face for 6 total then a 6/6 double striker and the 2/1 flamekin is game...

If he has blockers then do the same thing, but take out the defence as the titan comes in and use the additional 3 when he attacks to pick up the strays... They are still going to take 14 and they won’t have any creatures left...

Of course you could also give the titan trample instead of double strike or play any number of  1 or 2 point red instants.. . or any of the other fatties we mentioned above...

We haven’t printed a start hand or a deck list because this combo is really easy to play...it’s only two cards... build a deck with 3 or 4 sets of playable fatties and your chances of having the land , the training grounds, the flamekin and one of them is pretty good... So go wild...

This is a decent little trick and we know there are better ways to play it, but it’s fun and cheap and there is defiantly a strong extended deck in here somewhere so send us your lists and we’ll put them up...

Tomorrow we’re going to have a crack at standard and we’d love to hear your crazy ideas... Remember this is the week of madness and we want the barmiest suggestions ever We don’t want to know the deck’s deep analysis ...We want to know what madness was behind it... 

Does your deck win by losing... 

Do you have win a 4000/4000 ornithopteras a win condition?  

Can you win by forcing your opponent to scoop the first game and try to sideboard a solution for the second? 

Tell us how and why you’ve built your insane decks and we’ll share your ideas...

And one final word about our Krark’s Thumb deck... 

Thankyou for all the feedback... and we are glad you enjoyed the spirit of the build.... and thanks to Sarah form Ipswich for pointing out I misspelt Franc (a fact that will shortly be remedied. ) but it’s nice to have some girls following the blog.  We’ve actually got a special article coming up for girls who play magic, by a girl that plays magic, so keep your eyes out for that... Back to the comments though... Most of you seemed to notice our disclaimer at the bottom of the article, but a couple of you didn’t...

So for those that didn’t...

YES we know it’s still down to luck...

But having said that...

Although the deck is really cheap (which it is) and the one turn combo is unlikely (which it also is) it does do ok even in longer games because while the turn one kill may be unlikely...

Turn one... Thumb... Turn two... Game of Chaos is easy...

Also if you don’t get that... then turn one Planar Chaos will throw off most other legacy decks. 

Our week of madness begins!

We all love a trier and history is full of tales of brave folks doing mad things in a last ditch attempt to steal victory. Whether it’s a bunch of Greeks in a Wooden Horse, an African madman driving a herd of Elephants over a mountain range, some guys blowing trumpets at the walls of Jericho or even some farmers hiring a handful of cowboys or was that samurai? The point is, if it hadn’t worked, and let’s not pretend for a second that a million other fatally flawed plans didn’t, we’d never have heard of it. Conversely as they did succeed (even if only in the movies ) the modern world has such a soft spot for death defying feats of heroic lunacy, that these stories are immortalised. (usually by making movies)

So my friends in honour of the brave 300 we are going to investigate the world of do or die last ditch, million to one shots and general lunacy in the world of Magic...  Most times these decks and combos will do nothing, but fizzle out feebly, make you swear profusely and look like an idiot... but sometimes just sometimes... the little blue touch paper will ignite and your opponent will be able to do nothing but stare open mouthed as you utterly devastate his plans with what can best be described as a wooden horse and some trumpets...  

We’re going to look at some crazy combos and decks for Legacy, Extended, EDH and not one, but 2 standard decks and one for them is brand new...

Today we’re going to have a look at Legacy and tomorrow we’ll look at Extended and then we’ll have a crack at standard for the weekend..
.

So to our first deck and this one is the perfect example of what we’re talking about. Two parts jank 50c rare, one part combo ramp and one part madscience.  This is a legacy deck like no other, it has 4 cards that cost more than $1 and whilst they are pretty expensive they are by no means bank breakers. I won’t bore you with the whole deck, but the combo is pure cheek.   

This is the infamous Krark’s Thumb One Turn kill combo... (Now we mentioned on the blog that we’d offer a prize for anyone who guessed it, no one did, but we did get an alternative idea which was along the right line and would kind of still count from Brian Leahy...so well done to you sir) We’ll tell you Brian’s idea in a second, but here’s the combo we had in mind...

You will need the god hand (But hey his is legacy and who doesn’t... plus if you had the money you could probably make this more stable)

So this is it...

1 Chrome Mox (about $15/20)

1 Krark’s Thumb

1 Mountain

1 pyretic ritual

1 seething song

1 (any) red spell

1 Game of Chaos

If you go first and your opponent isn’t playing blue (and force of will... and has it in his opening hand... and you’re not seriously unlucky) you’ve won...

How?  Well imprint the mox with (any) red spell... lay the mountain... tap both for the ritual... use the 3 mana for seething song you can now play both Krark’s thumb and the Game of Chaos and all you have to do to win is flip and win FIVE coin flips and because of Krark’s Thumb you basically have 10 chances to do it...  Because Game of Chaos goes up geometrically it works like this...

1^st  flip - they lose 1 - you gain 1 (19 v’s 21)

2^nd flip- they lose 2 – yiou gain 2(17 v’s 23)

3d flip – they lose 4 – you gain 4 (13 v’s 27

4^th flip –they lose 8 – you gain 8 (7 v’s 33)

5^th flip they lose 16 – you gain 16 (-9 v’s 39) of course if you lose the flip here you’re probably in trouble)

So there you have it. A cheap as chips (potential) first turn kill. I’m not for a second suggesting that you take this along to the world championships, but next time your beardy mate wants to play in a legacy tournament ask to borrow his chrome moxes (it can probably be done with mox opal too or perhaps some fancy lands) and hit the local traders 50p box in search of a Krark’s thumb or two...  You might not win any games, but you’ll have a blast and just maybe... yeah... just maybe...

Oh and before we forget, we got to say thanks to Brian for suggesting Mana Clash as an alternative. It could technically work too, but it would take at least 20 flips and maybe more and the chances of that happening, even with Krark’s thumb, are just a little too low...

If you want my exact Krark’s thumb decklist send me an email... but there are some great cards out there so If you just want to potter along on your own here are some suggestions to look out for... Planar Claos, Goblin bomb, Chance encounter ( imagine these last two with proliferate ) Bottle of Sulieman, Goblin Assassin (put in goblin assault too) and my favourite... Fiery Gambit (awesome card)   

Tomorrow we’re going to look at Extended.  It’s another nasty tricky combo deck and once again it’s great when it works and pants when it doesn’t... So what’s the plan this time?  Well there are less combo pieces but once again we’ll give you a teaser... How can you play a Titan, give it haste and double strike and wipe your opponent’s board all on turn three? And you can’t use any mirrors, cobras, polymorphs, pipers oh and you can’t use green at all...  

One final note of caution.... We recommend this deck as a casual or fun deck, but if you do take it to a tournament remember this very important rule...

You are not allowed to have any money on the table at any time (like a coin)  so use a coin that isn't legal tender.... (I use a french frank ...:if you think I'm being too cautious imagine you've just beaten a legacy player who has been playing foir 2o years and whose desk is worth £5000 and knows every rule... he;s gonna know this rule too and all he has to call a judge and pont at tjhe coin on the table... Would you really blame them? )

 

And yes we know its not guarenteed, but it also doesn't cost 2 grand...

Enttry for out first contest is now closed....

There will now be a short period of judging and a week today we'll announce the winner and ask them to generate a new key card for the next competion



Many thanks to everyone who took part.. Our judge this mointh I'm sure you'll be pleased to know is not I Gordon Vader, but Instead DCI Judge Micheal Chamberlain...  He will be appraisng all the ideas and will be offering feeback on all the decks.entered.  His decison willl be  impartial, but final...

On Adventures In the Meta this week we'll be looking at crazy combos, one turn wins and anything that falls into the realm of insanity... Do if you have a combo or an mad deck idea? Does you r deck win by dropping you;r life to -1000 or cby turning everthying into chickens?  If you do have any suggestions send them in...  I'll gve you a little taste and a teaser for now...

Can you think of a Krark's Thuimb first turn kill? there is a potential one... (maybe more ) we'll offer a special prize to anyone who can guess it before we post the article tomorrow....


Our email is Gordonvader@hotmail.co.uk